Robin Helweg-Larsen – Out Of Many…

Robin Helweg-Larsen
Out Of Many…

Two hundred million sperm
in one ejaculation;
and we are standing firm
and spouting with elation,
though but a single germ
survives to incarnation.

And much in nature throws
vast clouds into the ocean,
where myriad embryos
become a magic potion
consumed by all that goes
with food its only notion;

yet one or two survive
to adulthood and, later,
will make the species thrive
and serve up like a waiter
new young crowds that arrive
like cargo crammed on freighter.

This is how nature lives;
we should not think it foolish
eight billion of us gives
but forty fierce and mulish
posthuman narratives,
godlike as much as ghoulish.

Robin Helweg-Larsen – On Disrespecting Ancestors

Robin Helweg-Larsen
On Disrespecting Ancestors

I disrespect my ancestors fighting in wars,
Europeans fighting Europeans, blame without cause;
my English grandfather killed fighting the Germans,
my Danish uncle executed for killing with Germans,
my earlier German ancestors fighting the French,
my French ancestors fighting (and marrying) the English…
and the cause of the wars always indefensibly wrong.
Why should anyone glorify them in song?
Pride, greed and stupidity – these are the drivers of war.
I turn my back on all of them, stand on the sea shore,
marvel at wind and wave, at sun, moon and stars,
despising, ignoring, forgetting their idiot wars.

Margaret Elysia Garcia – Chicana Gen-X Horror Story # 2

Margaret Elysia Garcia
Chicana Gen-X Horror Story # 2

You will be the first on your mother’s side to graduate from college. It will sound like an achievement—but your primas will observe that you are broker than they are. Good for you, mi’jita, but can you speak Spanish yet? No. You majored in the other colonial language and now you forget things, like the right word at the right time. Loser. You double downed for a master’s in Creative Writing. But no one told you it would be useless without an ‘F’ in the middle of it.
       In a workshop you forget to identify yourself by your identities; you don’t have trigger warnings on your memoir pieces, and your classmates, (sporting all their identities with consideration), stare across the conference table at you, the ancient leper. Your classmates are writing coming of age stories set in the year 2015 and all the challenges they face with people who are not using the correct words. You remember a world with no TSA and walking right onto planes to visit fathers across the country at age seven; your ex-husband played with balls of mercury as toys in a shack off Revolution Boulevard. You did not warn them. Your life is a trigger. A biohazard. They may have been empathetic had you told them about you: a pansexual Latina, assault survivor, hailing from a gay military working class family, but that will sound like you are checking boxes even though it’s true. You blindsided them. Made them cry and so you are the enemy and now they will have to do an extra zoom therapy session and your own therapist—okay, you don’t actually have one, but if you did, you are sure she would have cancelled on you.
       At least you have new Doc Martens. Boots are the same price as therapy, but you can feel good looking down at your feet for years. You are both ancient and immature.
       You will once again take a gig teaching college freshmen. The students will not take notes unless they think it will be on the quiz. They do not appreciate you reiterating things that happened before they were born. Someone tells the dean that there are too many women authors on your syllabus and they did not sign up for feminism 101; there are also too many brown people on your syllabus. You remark how you sat through many hours of universal literature that were neither literature nor universal. However, the students are looking at their phones and your joke falls flat.
       Only the present is interesting; they live in a world without context. In casual conversation after class about music, you talk about the bands you liked growing up. They find these bands questionable. Yes, there were girls who slept with bands of fully grown men. They correct you and call it rape; you correct them and call it the 70s and 80s, and think of the girls in your high school, you included, who would not date anyone under 21.
       Despite all this, you are voted favourite teacher of the year. You think you might be on the way up to something and keep adjuncting—you’re in too far now to look back, a decade and change to be exact. You juggle commitments on committees. You bend backwards. And for my next trick? Nothing. No health insurance, no retirement— just a kid in your night class threatening to kill you.
       You think about giving up. No mas mierda.
       You think about quitting teaching again. You think of other jobs you might be better suited for. You missed the window on selling both your body and your soul. You have not made enough to retire. You will work odd jobs until you die. Younger, thinner people will train you and speak loudly as if you are deaf. You will catch a glimpse of your shoulders rolled and bent.
       You howl at your choices in your head; you bark at different moons.
       Oh. Is this not scary enough for you? Not a really horror story? Not Latina enough for you either? Aye dios mio. You know what? Fine.
       Here is a vampire waiting for you in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Oh for Christsake. Fine.
       Trigger Warning: despondent gen-xer, vampire, assault, blood, death. Murderer goes free.
       Are you happy now?
       Here is a vampire waiting for you in a Wal-Mart parking lot. He will be the last to see you alive. He is unassuming, not tall, pale or handsome. He can pass for anything. He is wearing bright red basketball and mixed matched socks. This is where it ends for you. You are not looking your best. Your eyeliner and mascara are smeared. You never lost the last thirty pounds. True, your neck is clean, and clearly visible in the v-neck tee shirt some child in Myanmar made. He asks you to sponsor his college education or something equally idiotic like buying a stale off brand chocolate bar. You hear him out, thinking his story is real even as his fangs pierce your skin and blood splurts out everywhere, including on your brand new boots with the red embroidered roses. At least the blood will match. A stray dog sniffs at your torso then lifts its leg. Your lifeless body is found by the pimply guy pulling in the shopping carts. The Wal-Mart manager will argue that you were actually found closer to the Krispy Kreme drive-thru next door. He doesn’t need anymore negative publicity. A couple of Gen Zs stand TikTok-ing themselves a yard from your corpse influencing—something. Your ghost watches seagulls swooping down to the asphalt for stale donut crumbs among the parking lot stick trees. It sounds more plausible to the authorities, given how fat you are, that you met your end at Krispy Kreme. Everything will always be your own fault. And no one will ever look for the vampire.       AQ

William Cass – Tie Your Own Shoes

William Cass
Tie Your Own Shoes

Tom had finally had enough of the guilt, the self-recrimination, the tortured soul that stared back at him from the mirror. He’d had enough of the deception and lies, the sneaking around, the brittle excuses. And he’d especially had enough of coming home afterwards to his wife, Marcie, and their toddler son whose warm, unconditional embraces left him grimacing with shame. He would end things with Madelyn. Today.
       He didn’t have the courage to tell her face-to-face, and he knew he’d make a shambles of a phone call or even a voicemail. A text had a frigid abruptness to it that felt like a slap. So, he reluctantly decided on email as the least abhorrent choice. Tom drafted and revised his message on his work computer a half-dozen times, then waited for everyone in the office to leave for their lunch break. Alone in his work cubicle, he finally heaved a sigh, impulsively changed the message’s subject line from ‘Hey’ ‘to ‘Important’ and hit ‘Send’ before he could decide otherwise. An immediate combination of repugnance, panic, and relief overwhelmed him. Street traffic whispered twelve floors below and the workroom copier rhythmically spit papers into its tray. He rose quickly and took the elevator down to the lobby kiosk to buy a pre-packaged salad.
       As if in a fog, Tom moved through his purchase’s transaction and the retracing of steps back to his desk. By then, a few of his coworkers had returned and mingled here and there chatting amiably. Mechanically, he sat and forced himself to eat. He’d just swallowed his second bite when his cell phone pinged next to the salad indicating an incoming text, and Madelyn’s name appeared on the screen. He shuddered once before dropping his plastic fork into the container and opening her text.
       It was in response to a string they’d started before their affair had begun several months ago. He’d sent the most recent message after departing her apartment after their last tryst: a pair of romantic GIFs. The reply she’d fashioned a moment earlier included a photo she’d taken of her naked bottom; he’d told her she had the sexiest one he’d ever seen. Her message read: ‘Luv you, too…can’t wait until tomorrow!’ It was followed by several kiss mark emojis.
      Tom felt his forehead furrow into a deep frown. He supposed it was possible she hadn’t yet seen his email, but that seemed unlikely since she received notifications of incoming messages on her own office workstation which she rarely left, even for her own lunch, and her responses were almost always instantaneous. He quickly checked his email on his desk computer and found a reply to his last message. He clicked on it and read: ‘I don’t understand?’ His wife’s familiar signature block perched underneath. It took Tom only a brief second to realize that, in his hurried anxiousness, he’d clicked on her work email address instead of Madelyn’s on his recipient dropdown bar where the two followed each other’s.
       A cold sweat bloomed between his shoulder blades and spread in both directions. He found himself re-reading her reply over and over as if that might make it go away. His temples began to throb. A cluster of co-workers a few cubicles away chuckled together.
       Tom squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head onto his desk. His father’s stern image appeared to him from when he was a young boy after he’d admitted to carelessly breaking a neighbour’s window throwing rocks.
       ‘You’ve tied your own shoes,’ his father had told him. ‘Now walk in them.’
       His father had been from an era when a few, choice words like that, hushed and harsh, could cut to your core. As they could years later when they reemerged uninvited: the last thing Tom wanted, and the precise thing he needed, to hear.        AQ

Karin Chastain Turner – all around

Karin Chastain Turner
all around

The artist writes: ‘For a long time, my photography practice consisted solely of planned, conceptual shoots. After receiving my BFA in 2021, under the pandemic’s shadow, I felt as though I could no longer create those images, so I didn’t. I barely created anything for almost two years. Then one day, I picked up a point and shoot film camera, my grandma gave me years ago, and I shot a roll of film. And then another. And another. I started photographing how I see the world around me: the moments of beauty and love as well as anger and pain. And along came this image, shot on a roll of Kodak Colorplus 200, using a Pentax K1000. I loved shooting on film so much that recently I began to scan my own film, (adjusting colour and light as needed via Adobe programs), including this one.’

Karin Chastain Turner, all around, photograph, 2023.

Carl Palmer – Father

Carl Palmer
Father

I never saw him cry
no tears of joy or regret
nor praise for me
no hugs, never kisses

always that stiff upper lip
ever emotionless smile
always to make me strong
never ever a momma’s boy

handshakes firm, hurtful
until I was strong enough
to squeeze back hard
but never did

Mantz Yorke – DNA

Mantz Yorke
DNA

Dou   ble
    hel   ix
       do   ing
      wh   at
  it   has
alw   ays
   do   ne –
      bre   ak
   re   join
mut   ate

Emma Atkins – Small Freedom

Emma Atkins
Small Freedom

‘Have you got her?’
‘No, do you have her?’
I was fumbling with catching the errant, rolling water bottle.
Mikey was sliding the car seat back into place.

                                        She was running.
                                                                                 Zigzagging down the forest path.
Wind in her hair and hair in her mouth.
                                                                                 Full-speed ahead. Giggling like a wild thing.
Hyena set free from the trap of baby reigns.
                                                                                 Lightning in a yellow parker.

We’re running, too, sprinting after that joyful menace.
Mikey catches her hood, tugs her to a stop in Wiley Coyote fashion
and they both double over, panting for breath.

She’s laughing, joy of freedom in her lungs,
showing off the new snaggle-tooth that’s poking through her gums.
We’re sighing in relief–overcome by thoughts of what could have been.

                                                                                                    Down a way is a fast-flowing stream.

Zach Keali’i Murphy – The Middle

Zach Keali’i Murphy
The Middle

Dad’s driving. The 1998 Volvo station wagon. Everything is on his mind but the road. My older sister sits up front. She’s going off to college at the University of Minnesota. I’ve never seen her smile this much. She looks thrilled to be leaving Nebraska. I’m stuck in the backseat between my mom and my younger brother, sitting on the grape juice stain and the potato chip crumbs that no one has ever had the time to clean up. My brother always claims the window seat, otherwise he gets motion sickness. He’s puked on me no less than five times since he’s been on this planet. My mom keeps wiping tears from her eyes before they have the opportunity to traverse the freckles of her cheeks. I think she’s afraid my sister will never come home again.
      Mom’s driving. The 2005 Honda Civic. Her jaw is clenched and she’s focused on the road. I’m riding in the passenger seat. My younger brother is in the back. Mom is taking us to my Dad’s apartment for the weekend. My brother doesn’t seem to mind bouncing back and forth between the two places. He’s always in his own universe. I’m having a difficult time picking my frown up from the sandy car mat. My brother points at me and asks, why is he always sad? Mom takes a moment to search for the right response. I can see the wheels spinning. She snaps open her mouth and looks at my brother through the rearview mirror. He’s sad because he’s not happy, she says. It isn’t an inaccurate assessment, I suppose. Mom always does her best. That’s her best quality. Dad? I can’t say the same about him.
       I’m driving. The 1998 Volvo station wagon. The rusted vessel was passed on to me. It runs on oil fumes and hope. There’s no one else in the car but my thoughts, a trunk packed with memories, and a hood full of uncertainty. I’m a middle child in the middle lane of a highway in the middle of America, dashing between two jobs because one just isn’t enough, shifting between medications that may or may not work, and being yanked between two parents who wince at the sound of each other’s names. The term ‘middle-aged’ freaks me out. How do you truly know when you’re middle-aged or not? I could be middle-aged right now. I’m twenty years old and this could be the halfway point of my life. Maybe less than half. You never know. I’m drifting somewhere between being awake and being asleep. The Volvo veers into the left lane, and I quickly swerve back into the dotted lines. I pull over to the shoulder of the highway. It’s the only one I have to lean on right now. I turn on the emergency lights. I climb over the tattered console and sit in the middle of the backseat. The grape juice stain is still there. I close my eyes, then fold in on myself. Traffic speeds by, unbothered.       AQ

Sharon Whitehill – Missing Pieces

Sharon Whitehill
Missing Pieces

Surely a mythical creature, the starfish: what looks like
a skullcap crawling along the sea floor on its lips,
with nary a torso or tail. Osiris’s wicked brother
chops his body to pieces and scatters the parts in the Nile—
a transgression peculiarly heinous when afterlife access requires
that even a god be physically whole. Losing a piece, a sea star
regrows the appendage; from that one lost arm an entire
new creature sometimes evolves. Absent such cellular magic,
the loss of human parts can be what permits the renewal,
as in surgeries to save my daughters: one with breast cancer,
the other with uterine tumours. Isis collects every piece of Osiris
except for his phallus, consumed by a fish—what better way
to convey the fall of a fertility god? Some female starfish flirt
with a form of dismemberment, splitting in half to become
a male pair who turn female again when mature. The illusion
of safety, so vital to human function and purpose, is easily shaken.
Late at night, when I’m waiting alone after the airport has emptied,
my husband appears at last like an angelic vision: a resurrection,
of sorts, of our life together. Isis reassembles her husband,
fully equipped through her magic, embalms him, wraps his body
in linen—thereafter the rites that reanimate dead Egyptians
as mummies. In my own life, no mythical sorcery or echinoderm
alchemy to restore a lost limb, a disappeared loved one, a self.
Rather, only postponement, the holding of loss in abeyance.
Which seems to me magic enough.